


No Regrets

by TheXWoman



Category: Castle
Genre: Angst, Angst and Romance, Children of Characters, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Newborn Children, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-30
Updated: 2013-09-30
Packaged: 2017-12-28 00:48:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/985659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheXWoman/pseuds/TheXWoman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roy was the one who had told her that, in their line of work, there were no victories.  Only battles.  Beckett wondered if the same was true for love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Regrets

Kate Beckett’s eyes ached. It had been a long night - the longest night, really, and her throat hurt with the promise of an oncoming cold. Sometimes she felt like she was in over her head. It wasn’t regret, exactly, but more the nagging feeling that things were becoming too much, and her grumpy disposition lately along with the constant headache didn’t help matters.

Ryan and Esposito had noticed. They spent the morning walking around on eggshells, quietly slipping notes and files onto her desk and her coffee cup kept getting magically refilled. They were both hovering around their own desk and finally, around noon, she mustered the strength to offer them both a smile.

“You two don’t have to keep avoiding me,” she told them. “It’s going to be like this for a while and we can’t change our work habits just because I had a bad night.”

The two detectives shared a knowing look, before Ryan spoke. “So, erm, is Castle coming in today?”

Kate winced. Esposito whispered _“Dude,”_ under his breath, and Ryan looked around, wide-eyed, and shrugged. “What? He owes me ten bucks.”

“He had to run some errands,” Kate explained. Errand Day was always the excuse when he knew she was on her last nerve, and there had been more and more of them lately. 

“So, Jenny’s been taking these classes,” Ryan said, shifting in his seat. “Their some kind of stress management class. She knows what you’re going through with the-”

Okay, maybe the walking on eggshells was a lot better. “I don’t need _classes_ , Ryan.”

“I just thought she could give you a few pointers.”

“Dude, seriously,” Esposito practically growled.

“Hey, I’m just trying to be helpful.”

“Boys!” Beckett snapped, louder than she’d meant to and for about two seconds you could hear a pin drop in the bullpen. Taking a deep breath, she leaned her elbows on her desk and laced her fingers together. “I’m fine, I’m just exhausted. Now, can we get back to work?”

Again with that knowing glance, and it bothered Beckett that they were having talks about her behind her back that she wasn’t privy to. It was exactly one of things she wanted to avoid. She’d been back a whole three weeks since her leave, and she was starting to wonder when things would get back to normal.

And then she had to remind herself they wouldn’t. She’d made a choice, and she didn’t regret it, but things weren’t ever going to be _normal_ again.

“Right, I gotta go get those results from ballistics,” Esposito muttered, hopping up from his desk. Ryan followed like a loyal lapdog.

“And I, um, have to follow up on that video surveillance.”

“Okay, then,” Kate said, relieved. “Let me know if you find anything.”

The men scattered and Beckett just stared down at her desk. She didn’t really want to work, so she went to the bathroom instead.

When she wandered back out, she caught a glimpse of a Chinese takeout box perched on the files on her desk. She frowned for a moment, mustering the nerve to round the corner and sure enough, there was Castle, settled into his seat. His laptop was opened on the edge of her desk, and he was dropping long strands of chow mien into his mouth pensively. When he saw her, he tried to stand up and nearly sent his laptop toppling onto the floor.

“Calm down, Castle,” she told him. “I’m not in a bad mood anymore.” It was, mostly, a lie, but from the look on his face, it was one he needed to hear.

“I brought you lunch, in case you hadn’t eaten.” She smiled at him and his eyes crinkled in that way that made her heart flutter a little. Damn him, it was so hard to stay mad at him when he made her heart do things like that. And she knew him well enough to know that’s exactly what he was going for.

“Where’s Hannah?”

Castle settled back into his seat. “Alexis wanted to spent some quality time with her.”

“Is that why you came here?”

“I came here because I wanted to see you.”

Silence rested over them. He stared at her and she stared at the Chinese food container on her desk, running her eyes over the print of the red stylized dragon on the side and trying to think of what she wanted to say.

“Rick-”

“Kate-”

Beckett shook her head and laughed, and Castle set down his food on the corner of the desk. He folded his hands in his lap and his face said that she was getting his complete attention.

“You go first.”

Kate leaned back in her seat and stared up at the ceiling. “I’m sorry. I was out of line last night and I shouldn’t have yelled at you. We’re both busy and under a lot of stress and...” She flashed her eyes up to him quickly. “Our priorities have changed.”

“I know and that’s what I wanted to tell you. I’m ending it.”

Kate froze and stared up at him, her eyes wide. “You’re... what?”

“The book deal. I’m postponing it. I don’t have time for it right now, between wanting to be here and wanting to spend time with Hannah. The literary world can go a year without a new release by Richard Castle.” He smiled smugly. “As hard as that may be...”

“Why, Castle. I never thought that you would put away your laptop for a girl.”

“Just for a year,” he said pointedly. “I have no plans to retire. Nikki Heat still has a few cases left in her.”

Beckett just tilted her head and stared at him. “You know, we’re past this. You don’t have to follow me around anymore.”

“I know that.” He reached out, putting his hand on her leg gently. “I’m not here for the books, Kate. You know that as well as me.”

“Castle...”

“Hey, listen, I don’t need the lecture. I know I have someone in my life now who’s more important than anyone else. But it’s not like I’m new to this. When Alexis was born, I knew she always had to be my priority and I’d like to think I’ve done okay. But I still was able to write and spent time with the other people in my life who I care about. I can do that again.”

She knew he was right, but it still sat funny with her. Not heavy, like a regret, but just a niggling feeling that things would never be quite right anymore “And we can still spend time together. But maybe we need to do it in a way that isn’t as all encompassing.”

He shook his head, and she knew her arguments were already invalid before she even began to form them. His mind was made up, and he wouldn’t budge. He was too much like her in that way.

And that was one of the reasons she had fallen in love with him, wasn’t it?

But that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to fight him. “And what if something happens to you? What if one of your stupid stunts get you killed? Then what? You don’t have just Alexis and Martha to think about anymore.”

“Nothing is going to happen to me.”

“But what if something does!” She looked around, hoping she didn’t draw the attention of anyone else, and then she leaned in, trying to keep her voice lowered and tempered. “I couldn’t make it through last night without freaking out at the idea of you not being around. What happens if one of these crazy jackasses kills you, Rick? How am I supposed to be a mother with that hanging over my head?”

Castle’s face went blank, and he pulled away his hand. She could tell he didn’t have a response, and that was enough to keep her going.

“You’ve done it before. You raised Alexis by yourself and I know you can raise Hannah without me. But what am I supposed to do without you?”

His eyes lit up with some kind of response, but Beckett didn’t hear it, because Esposito and Ryan were ripping out of the elevator, hollering her name. Castle knew he was about to lose her and tried to get his piece in.

“Kate, we-”

“Not now, Castle. Go home. I have work to do.”

Ryan sidled up to the desk, slapping a print out of the video surveillance he’d been laboring over. “Beckett, you are not going to believe this... Hey, Castle, you sticking around?”

“No,” Castle replied curtly, grabbing his laptop and tucking it under his arm. “I was just leaving.”

Beckett picked up the picture to look at it, trying to quell her anger by making sense of the evidence in front of her. By the time she looked up again, Castle was gone.

***

When she opened the door to the apartment, it was a little past ten. It had been a long day, but she’d closed the case, and with her mind now empty of the stresses of her work, she was just hoping that Castle had already gone to bed.

But he hadn’t. He was sitting on the couch, the flickering glow of the television lighting his blank face. His arms were wrapped around a little bundle of blankets that he held gently, like it was a precious heirloom.

Beckett abandoned her wallet and gun in a drawer next to the door and slipped into the living room, sitting down gently beside him.

“Is she asleep?”

Castle shifted Hannah in his arms gently, and turned to look at Beckett. “Yeah. I fed her about an hour ago.”

“Thanks.”

They sat in silence. The television was muted, and it looked like he was watching an infomerical about some over-hyped cleaning product. She wanted to turn it up, to fill the silence with something, but she didn’t want to wake the baby.

“You should get some sleep,” he finally told her. 

“I can’t sleep, I’m too wired.”

“I told you that you shouldn’t have switched off decaf.”

“I don’t want you coming to work with me anymore.”

Silence again, and Kate looked at Castle. He looked like he wanted to cry.

“Do you have any idea what I went through when you were shot, Kate? I know you don’t want to hear it, because it’s selfish, but the whole time the only thing I could think about was what I was going to do without you. That I was the one who was going have to live out the rest of my life dreaming about the moment I watched the person I loved die.”

Burying her head in her hands, she groaned. “It’s my job, Castle.”

“I know that. And that’s exactly why I didn’t beg you to quit when we found out you were pregnant. But every time you went to work all I could think about is if someone shot you or pushed you down a flight of stairs or punched you in the stomach... I had nightmares about it. I thought after Hannah was born that would go away, but it didn’t.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

“Because you would have thought about quitting, and asking you not to be a cop is like asking me not to write anymore. And I love you too much to do that to you.”

She pulled her legs up under her and leaned against his shoulder, staring down at Hannah’s peaceful face. Alexis had been the spitting image of Meredith, but Hannah was all Castle. She was their legacy; and Beckett knew, in the coming years, she would be just as much trouble as her father. It made her heart beat fast to think about it, knowing the adventure it would be to watch her little girl grow up. Castle had saved Beckett’s life, in his own weird way. But Hannah, well, Hannah made her feel like she would live forever.

“Maybe I can find a desk job somewhere...”

He shook his head. “You’d be miserable.”

“Yeah, I would.”

He turned to look at her, staring into her eyes. Oh, she wanted to kiss him. She wanted to tuck the baby in and take him back to their room and do things to him that would make him forget all about his nightmares. But it wouldn’t change things. This would still be hanging over their heads in the morning, like it would every morning, until the end of their lives or the end of her career, whichever came first. It was part of them, and it would be part of Hannah, too, when she was old enough to understand.

“Are you still following me around because you want to? Or is it because you think you can protect me?”

It was a trick question, because if he answered the latter, she would be insulted, and he knew her too well to do that.

“You know why I still follow you around.”

Maybe it was a little bit of both. In a way, it was as sweet and noble as it was annoying. She leaned in and pressed her lips against his. It wasn’t a surrender, just a peace offering, an acknowledgement that this was argument that was a long way from its end.

Roy was the one who had told her that, in their line of work, there were no victories. Only battles. Beckett wondered if the same was true for love.

She looked into his eyes, and then down at the small form of their slumbering daughter. “Let’s go to bed, Castle.”

He smiled, a smile that reminded her that he was on her side, no matter how things changed. No matter how rocky the ground was where she made her stand, she’d finally let her best friend close enough to stand with her. And that made the battle worthwhile.


End file.
